


Soft and Slow and Just Right

by Nny



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Goldilocks and the Three Bears Elements, M/M, it makes me so happy that that is a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 21:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12141390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: There was soft laughter from the bedroom, and Clint hung his head over the sink.“You can leave if you want,” he said. “It pretty much only gets more tragic from this point on.”-In which Clint discovers that two wrongs somehow always lead to a right, when Bucky Barnes is involved.





	Soft and Slow and Just Right

The roof right over his bed was leaking, which was worrying him a bit about the structural integrity of the cook-outs. He kept meaning to call someone out - Clint’s to-do list was long and constantly evolving and full of cryptids - but there were missions and emergencies and vet appointments and shit, and he was fine sleeping on the couch. He’d get to it. 

Just like he’d get to replacing the couch, soon as he had a moment. He’d scrubbed the life outta the damned thing - more literally than he’d like to think about, thanks - after hauling it up off the curb, but it was mostly holding itself together with duct tape and fraying thread, and he was expecting catastrophic spring failure any day. 

When he found himself eyeing Lucky’s bed with covetous eyes, he figured maybe it was time to seek an alternative solution. 

First place he tried was the base’s common room/kitchenette/conference room area, but it was seriously way too big. Even curling up under the pool table didn’t limit the space enough, left him twitchy and restless, and he was starting to garner comment with the dark circles under his eyes. The next place he tried, the vents - turned out that he wasn’t so good with small places as he used to be. It was fine as a means of transportation, as a hiding place for ambushes, but he’d got a little too used to comfort and the ability to move his arms, so that was a wash. 

He was practically sleep-walking after a mission when he happened on a little room that didn’t seem to have any practical purpose. Maybe Steve had been behind it, ‘cos it tended towards the filing cabinets even though the Avengers was nothing if not digital. Tucked in the corner, though, screened between two sets of drawers, there was a faded gray beanbag that cradled him just perfectly when he gave into the urge to curl up. It was soft, and warm, and smelled faintly of washing powder and oil, and it was just about the most perfect place Clint had ever been. Even the time he woke up covered in a soft red throw, even in a base full of silent assassins, it was just exactly right. 

The long nights on the couch, though, they hadn’t done him much good. Something in his back kept tweaking, and he kept trying to roll his neck out when he was perched on the rooftop, the next mission, but he was having limited success. 

“You okay?” Barnes asked, which considering the usual stoicism of the guy was practically word vomit. Clint returned in kind, told him about his neck, the pain of sourcing trick arrows when Tony’s income wasn’t backing him up, the paucity of comfortable seating on base, and anything else that crossed his mind. He was braced, ready for the snapping insistence that he shut the hell up, but instead he found himself distracted by the tiny quirk at the edge of the guy’s mouth. 

When they’d finally killed the enormous snake thing, done enough gut-shoveling to satisfy Steve, they herded back onto the ‘jet with the others, Barnes following along at Clint’s shoulder like that was where he belonged. The guy laid a gentle hand on Clint’s arm when he went to take the pilot’s seat, shoving him - carefully - towards the benches in back. 

“Give yourself a rest,” he said, “might be better for your neck.” 

“Thanks, man,” he said, smiling genuinely and wide, and maybe he was imagining it but it seemed like Barnes’ eyes dropped to his mouth for a split-second before he was turning to swing himself into the cockpit. Clint licked his lips, cocked his head - and then swore as he remembered why he wasn’t doing that - and then shifted his ass to the bench. 

He wouldn’t admit on pain of death that the damned things were too hard. 

Steve gathered them all in the common room that night, ‘cos he was trying desperately to make them something that resembled a team. The couches had all been pulled up around the screen they used for briefings, and there was popcorn and soda and seriously, where had he found all the throw pillows? That was where Clint was relegated, ‘cos he’d found it a little difficult to lift his arm above shoulder height without his neck tweaking and his shower had been a modern dance routine of inventively flexible positions. 

Wanda and Vision were curled up on the couch together, Steve and Sam had Scott grinning between them, and frankly the floor in front of Barnes’ armchair looked like the least risky place for him to sit. Clint brought over an armful of pillows and arranged them into a heap that disintegrated as soon as he threw himself onto them, too soft and structurally unsound to do much in propping him up to view the film. 

Steve - because he was  _freaking adorable -_  had gone with The Incredibles, and listening to Wanda laugh was doing Clint’s heart a world of good. He shifted a couple times, swearing under his breath, when a heavy metal hand dropped onto his shoulder. 

“You can take my damned seat,” Barnes said, and Clint felt guilty for all of the second it took for Barnes to roll his eyes at him, the expression too fond to be misinterpreted far. “You’re making my back sore just lookin’ at you.” 

“You’re sure?” Clint gestured towards protest, but Bucky got up and hauled him uncompromisingly to his feet, and that felt pretty sure to him. The chair was Clint’s favorite, perfectly poised between supportive and comfortable, and he settled himself into it with a pleased groan that made Sam question what the hell the two of ‘em were getting up to. Steve threw popcorn. Barnes scowled at him and dropped grumpily onto the pile of pillows, shifting around for a second before leaning back against Clint’s legs. 

“Too goddamn soft,” he mumbled, when Clint tensed a little against him before carefully relaxing again. 

Neither of them mentioned it when Clint’s hand - in dropping to rest on his thigh - ended up brushing Barnes’ head. Nor did they talk about the fact that, after that, Barnes rested a little heavier against him. But by the end of the night - after another film and an only semi-awkward conversation between them all - Clint had started calling him Bucky. 

They kinda fell into something a little like friendship, after that. Clint was calling it friendship, anyway, ‘cos that was infinitely less complicated than thinking about the way it sometimes felt a little like the stormy gray of Bucky’s eyes punched him right in the stomach, or how much he regretted not winding his fingers into long brown hair. 

The team - outside of Clint’s little crush, which he was neither gonna talk about nor acknowledge, thanks - was getting along better, too, and shared meals, shared movies, shared pool tournaments became a thing. Clint eventually gave in and picked himself a bedroom, moved Lucky’s dog bed from Bed-Stuy to the space under the pool table that Clint’d briefly called home. And he relaxed, and he grew comfortable, until it almost seemed natural to grin at a sleepy-eyed Bucky one morning and ask him if he maybe wanted to go out for dinner, one time. He was still kinda shocked when the guy said yes. 

Of course, being them, and the world being what it was, dinner had to be cancelled three times before they finally got around to it, and even then it was just takeout eaten at the rickety card-table that Clint’d claimed. 

He kept finding himself grinning, and they were always returned, and it just felt like an evening with a gentle gravitational pull towards the inevitable kiss. So he was pretty satisfied with himself when he brushed Bucky’s hand when snagging the last egg roll, when he used his chopsticks to grab one of his fiery shrimp. 

“I wouldn’t,” Bucky warned, grinning his irresistible teasing grin, and Clint licked his lips and shoved it straight in his mouth. 

Sometimes his choices were just  _really bad_  choices. 

“Fuck!” he yelped, swallowing it down over the really unattractive option of spitting it out onto his plate. “Oh, fuck, too hot, too hot.” He shoved away from the table and hurried to the en-suite bathroom, shoving his head under the faucet. The water was blessed relief for all of a second before the temperature registered. “Aaw shit,” he said, “brain freeze.” 

There was soft laughter from the bedroom, and Clint hung his head over the sink. 

“You can leave if you want,” he said. “It pretty much only gets more tragic from this point on.” 

“What if I like tragic?” Bucky asked, and he looked so perfect leaning in the doorway, so solid and gorgeous and fond, that Clint couldn’t do anything to resist the urge to walk over to him, settling his hands on Bucky’s hips. 

“Then that’d be pretty much perfect for me,” Clint said and leaned in for a kiss, spicy warm and teasing, soft and slow and just right. 

 


End file.
